


Your Whole Team Feel I Don't Deserve

by cafemusain



Series: some terrible nights [2]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Absent Parents, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - High School, Gen, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-01-10
Packaged: 2017-11-25 00:52:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cafemusain/pseuds/cafemusain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire starts a long and difficult recovery process… with a little characteristic help from his friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Whole Team Feel I Don't Deserve

They think they can handle it. Even Grantaire thinks they can handle it, and, perhaps more convincingly at the time, so does Joly, who compulsively researches medical conditions in his free time. It’s late afternoon by the time he begins vomiting, and that much they can handle with buckets—he’s gotten to this point before. Unfortunately he’s never experienced it further, so he isn’t aware of what’s coming. 

Somewhere between the hallucinations and the violent tremors and the vomiting blood, they realize they are way, way out of their depth.

The screams about betrayal when Combeferre calls 911 around 2 am aren’t something any of them will forget anytime soon. Courfeyrac calls Grantaire’s parents—they don’t tell him that part. He’s not in any state to hear it. The only person he even lets near him is Enjolras, and he rides in the ambulance. They foliow in two cars and Enjolras is already in the waiting room. His parents and sister (brother’s left for an internship in China) arrive soon after, backs stiff, and talk quietly with Courfeyrac. Nobody is shown back. “It’ll only upset you,” the doctor tells the family, and the boys realize this isn’t something that’ll be over by morning.

To their credit, his parents stay. They do not, however, feel it necessary to inform his friends of any details, even when they ask. His sister camps herself firmly among his friends, and though she doesn’t have much to talk about with them (being fourteen), she says she’s glad they’re there. She saw him try last time. She’d found the key to the cabinet for him because she’d been scared. Courfeyrac wraps an arm around her and tells her some joke, says something a little flirtatious, makes her laugh. It’s not so bad after that, not other than the anxiety of no news. Some of them doze off on each other’s shoulders before morning. Joly only comments on staph infection and pneumonia risks once. Nobody leaves. 

After the doctor comes out again, his parents try to say something about a “private affair,” and they all stay exactly where they are.

“I’ll stay,” Courfeyrac says to them at midmorning. “Bahorel, I think you’ve got enough room in your car for everyone. Just get everyone home and I’ll keep you posted.” They’re a seat short, so Enjolras stays, too. They don’t talk much with his parents.

“It’s a good thing it’s summer, right?” His sister offers gently. They try to keep her entertained, but they run out of old magazine crosswords after a while. Courf manages to trick the coffee machine into giving them free cappuccinos (they even offer two as peace-gifts to his parents) until a maintenance worker comes and unplugs it with a glare.

His parents go back first. His mother comes back crying and Courfeyrac isn’t as angry at her anymore. He’s so used to hearing Grantaire’s side that he forgets his parents are people too. Wrong ones, imperfect ones, downright shitty ones, but they probably do care, somewhere. In the way that they can. Enjolras’s gaze remains icy.

She comes over to them a few minutes later.

“We—” she sighs. “We’re glad it’s this, and not another overdose.” It’s as close to thanks as they’ll get, Courfeyrac supposes. They don’t need to know about the frantic late-night search and the nearly-crashed car that spurred the decision—now considered reckless—to quit cold turkey.

“When will it be okay to visit him?”

“We won’t bring Ellie back until tomorrow. We’ll put you and—” Enjolras supplies his name “on the list.” 

They don’t talk much as Courfeyrac drives Enjolras home. “I’ll keep you posted, man. Promise.” Enjolras nods. Courfeyrac is pretty impressed that he seems this worried—he and Grantaire had always seemed kind of at odds with one another. 

The news comes mostly from his sister, who texts in emoticons and abbreves and weird capitalization. The updates are, however, gratefully received. Their group message is ten pages long by the time, two days later, when they all show up in Grantaire’s hospital room with obnoxious balloons and cards and boisterous energy. “I tried to get them to let me bring the xbox back, but they said it wouldn’t be too much longer,” Lesgles says cheerfully, and Bahorel whacks him enthusiastically on the back. Joly tells him with something near glee about all the infections he’s lucky not to have caught in this environment. Other than their uncharacteristically quiet host, only Enjolras and Combeferre are subdued.

“I’m going to a program,” he finally says quietly, and everyone hushes up. “Not a long one—I mean, some of you are going on longer vacations. But like. I thought I’d mention it.”

Teenage boys aren’t very good at comfort. They all smile their best and give him genuinely heartfelt good-luck-dude’s. Bahorel thumps his back manfully again, and he cringes with as much grateful affection as he can muster. It’s as if he doesn’t know what to do with the affection, however clumsily-given. He admits, later, to Courfeyrac and Enjolras, that he’s embarrassed. He’s still kind of zoned out on whatever drugs they’re giving him, but now he’s got time to feel exhausted with himself. “I’m just… done with it. I’m sorry you guys had to—” but they silence that line of thought. It’s Enjolras, to Courfeyrac’s surprise, that asks, “do you want one of us to stay? It doesn’t seem like there’s much to do.” To himself, he adds, and you don’t seem to like your own company much.

Courfeyrac is never sure what they do in those hours Enjolras stays after Courfeyrac leaves. After that, it’s always Enjolras who seems to have the news first, Enjolras who tells them Grantaire will be back in two weeks. He’s glad to see it happen, honestly. Feuilly will be visiting his grandmother in Florida by then, and he makes them promise to let him know how Grantaire is. They all write him a really long, sappy letter together. Courfeyrac writes him a separate one. He’s pretty sure Enjolras sends one too.

On his first night home, Grantaire is astounded and a little upset to receive a text from Courfeyrac reading, “party at my house.” Enjolras checks in three minutes later to make sure he’ll be there. This is weird as fuck. He goes anyway. Everyone’s cars are where they normally are. He goes downstairs—the music isn’t that loud. Actually, it kind of sounds like someone’s playing a video game. When he hears a loud reaction by multiple male people to something happening, he’s sure. Pizza smells waft up the stairwell.

The ruckus they burst into when he opens the door is extraordinary. It looks even stupider: they are all wearing footed pajamas. He literally has to sit down, he’s laughing so hard. Even Enjolras is wearing a pair with little flags on them, and he manages to still look dignified. Combeferre’s are pink with butterflies. He’s pretty sure Prouvaire’s were like, four different pairs before Prouvaire got a hold of them.

They all grin sheepishly and clap him on the back and offer him his own set and explain the duds were Prouvaire’s idea (as if he hadn’t figured that one out). There are like five different kinds of pizza and more bottles of Mountain Dew than are healthy, and Mr. Courfeyrac finally hooked up the surround sound and they’re playing Mario Kart.

“Jesus shitting Christ, are we like, ten—”

Nobody allows for any arguments. ”Dude, it’s the beginning of Sober Summer 2010. It’s gonna rock,” Lesgles says in all earnestness. The rest grin and nod. 

None of them ever lets him forget that at that moment, surrounded by dudes in footie pajamas, he starts crying.

**Author's Note:**

> Credit to Stuart for bugging me and for the title, and to Winter probably for various ideas exchanged on the original lmhsau meltdown night. Originally posted on tumblr at http://lesgles.tumblr.com/post/40158400944/your-whole-team-feel-i-dont-deserve-an-lmhsau


End file.
